The slender yet golden and warm stream of sunlight peeking through the tiny space between the drawn curtains shone brightly directly on her face, tickling her nose until she woke up. Slowly and only very reluctantly she opened her eyes and sat up in bed. It was so quiet all around, it was almost like a dream and so she kept sitting there for a minute, taking it all in. Much more energetically than before, she swung her legs out from underneath the blanket and felt the carpet underneath her feet luring her back into reality. It was a rarity that she should wake up on her own accord before her maid came in to wake her and help get her ready. Slightly suspicious about that, she turned to look at the clock sitting on her bedside table. To her surprise it was far earlier than she had initially thought — O'Brien would not come to wake her for another two hours at the very least.

With a slight groan, she let herself fall back into the cushions, most of the energy that had seemed to surge through her only seconds before vanished after she realised she still had hours to rest. Then her arm stretched out, entirely unintentionally, searching for him in the other half of the bed. As she stretched her hand out and let it brush over the bedding she found it crisp and cold to her touch. Confused, she turned her head still resting on the pillow to find his side of the bed empty, all made up the way it had been the night before. He had not slept there. Her hand began to glide over the sheets once more, drawing feather-light circles with her delicate fingers on the stark white fabric under the heavy comforter. And then they stopped their movements and she suddenly remembered why his side had remained empty the whole night.

As if pricked by an invisible needle or burned on a lambent candle, she bolted out of bed. Cora crossed her arms across her chest and walked up to the big window hidden for the most part behind the curtains she had drawn the night before. She came to a halt only about an arm's length away from it, her eyes curiously fixed on the photograph on her dressing table she had turned to the side weeks ago when, sitting at her dressing table and getting ready to face another strenuous dinner, she hadn't been able to bear his eyes staring at her from inside the simple silver frame for even just a second longer. Just that old photograph of him taken before he had gone to fight in the Boer War had filled her with so much anger and resentment that she had not seen another solution, and it had worked. Her maid had surely noticed this, that the back of the frame had been facing her, but she had yet to say a word about it. Cora knew her trusty lady's maid would never mention it, not to her and not to another living soul. That was simply who O'Brien was; her attentive, ever supportive and trustworthy lady's maid.

And now, standing next to her dresser, she saw it again. That old, faded photograph of him in his new uniform, his hair cut much shorter than she had been used to. But he looked proud, Cora vividly remembered why. It wasn't just because he would be going to war to fight for his Queen and the country, but also because of what they had all said when they had seen him in this uniform for the first time. She could still see their daughters standing behind the man operating the camera, talking about how much they liked that uniform on him. Or rather Mary and Edith had been talking about it, likely bickering about what they liked most. Sybil had been too young, having been barely 5 years of age at the time, to know anything about uniforms and their use. She had had no idea her father would be sent to very distant shores just a few weeks later without any of them knowing if he would ever return to them in one piece. But she had been the one to tell him that the uniform and new haircut did suit him, just moments before the photographer announced he should try not to move for this picture to turn out good. His reaction to that bittersweet moment had been captured then, the genuine smile immortalised in the photography there.

And now, their sweet daughter was no longer there. Sybil was gone. Dead. When she died, it seemed she had unknowingly and unwillingly taken their decades of mutual understanding based on trust and companionship and love for one another away with her. She would hate to see the two of them being this way, so far estranged from one another.

If Cora had not cried so much the past few weeks, she would have broken down right then and there, reduced to a bundle of sobs on top of their bed, as that realisation dawned on her. But alas, it seemed Cora had cried so many tears since that awful night as she mourned her daughter that she had no tears left to cry for the husband she was so desperately missing.

Robert had not slept in that bed for over a month now, all that was left of his omnipresent love and companionship was now only a gaping hole in the centre of her life, almost as if he had gone, died, along with their daughter.

Only that circumstance was on her. She had pushed him away. Vehemently. Continuously. Every advance he had made to set things right between them over the past weeks she had blocked. She had had good reason to rebuff him again and again, but deep down she knew it had been the wrong thing to do. As had been leaving him behind at the Dower House after the doctor had left. She should not have left without a word and she would for sure be getting an earful about this from her mother-in-law, she could already hear the hefty reprimand she was in for. Maybe it was best to go seek her out and apologise on her own accord to calm the waves before they turned into a full-blown storm. She made a mental note to tell Carson to ask Haynes to drive her down to the village later in the afternoon as she had an important call to pay.

All she wanted to do as she stood there was to hold her daughter close and watch her cradle that little bundle of joy who was blissfully asleep in the nursery down the hall. She'd never get to do that, she'd never get to see little Sybil be held by her mother. She'd never see that blissful smile on her darling daughter's features again, the one Cora got to witness just hours before all hell broke loose that night. It was horrible to remember what followed young Sybil's birth, but Cora would forever cherish that relieved, joyous smile on her daughter's face when her newborn daughter was handed to her. It was an image she cherished and held on to on mornings like this. On those hard mornings when she remembered, when she desperately needed cheering up.

Just as desperately as she needed cheering up, however, she felt that she needed to see him. As she thought of their daughter, all she wanted to do was hug him tight. All she wanted was to feel his strong arms around her. She wanted to feel safe, she longed for his embrace and his soothing voice as he spoke so tenderly to her like he had done in the past whenever she needed it. Cora was sure she would break down the instant she felt his arms around her, but it wouldn't matter. He was her husband, such a thing had never put him off before.

Only Robert could piece together again her broken heart that had been shattered into a thousand pieces with merely his presence and loving words. Only he could fix her broken, tired soul. Only her husband would be able to guide her out of this dreary bog that had become her daily life filled with so much sadness and misery.

But after weeks, Robert had finally listened to her demands and stopped approaching. He had stopped his advances just when she desperately needed him close. Now, she realised, it was solely on her to go find him, to seek him out and ask him back. It was on her to fix the bond she had slowly and gradually worn thin with her refusal, until at last it had disintegrated right in front of her eyes.

Not even bothering to put on her dressing gown, she crossed her room and knocked on the door to his dressing room. For a good minute she waited, straining to hear his voice through the wood asking her to step in, but she heard no such thing. Then she waited with bated breath, trying to hear his light, even snores through the door in case he was still asleep. She did not hear those, either, so eventually she opened the door and hesitantly stepped inside.

Looking around she noticed that the bed was made and that the fire in the small fireplace had never been lit the night before; the small logs were still neatly assembled in the hearth waiting to be lit. Even apart from that, this room felt cold. Uninhabited. It was still early and not at all a time at which even he would be up on any given day, even if he had business errands to run around the estate, so where was he if not in here?

Suddenly doubting her brash decision to go into her husband's room uninvited, she stepped towards the window where the display case containing his snuffboxes stood. Her eyes wandered over them, one by one. Most of the small boxes neatly assembled in the display had been given to him by her throughout the years. She distinctly remembered the one she gifted him on their tenth anniversary — it was quite prominent with its intricate carvings, lying next to the inconspicuous one she had found in London while searching for a gift for his 40th birthday all those years ago. The tiny silver one she had given him to take to war, battered and dented as it now was, sat right there in the centre of the display. They were all here, every last one she had given him throughout the years he had kept. A collection assembled over the course of a lifetime and she remembered every last one.

Wistfully and moved by this realisation, she looked out ahead onto the gravel. She realised that this morning had been the first in a long time when just the mere thought of him had not filled her with rage, resentment or unbearable sadness and emptiness. This morning — just minutes earlier — she had been able to look at his photograph without having to think of her daughter writhing in bed, struggling to breathe. Instead, she had recalled that sweet moment over twenty years ago, when her daughter had been but a young, innocent girl and her husband a soldier about to go to war. That single memory had filled her with a warmth deep inside she hadn't felt in weeks. It had filled her with a warmth she had thought she would never be able to feel again.

Down below, in the early morning light, Haynes had just parked Matthew's car in front of the door, greeting her son-in-law who stepped out the front door at that moment. Quickly, the two men examined the car as if to make sure it was ready for a longer drive. Maybe Matthew had a long day of errands for the estate to run ahead of him. It would not be out of the ordinary, she thought. Robert had done the same years earlier. What was abnormal was her husband's absence from this room and it seemed he was not going to join Matthew, either. Just as she was standing there, Cora saw Mary climb into the passenger seat of the car. She watched their chauffeur retreat then as her son-in-law sat down behind the steering wheel and started to drive the car down the winding way down to the gates.

A while later, Cora was still lying in bed, unmoving, staring at the ceiling as her thoughts ran rampant. Even though Sybil, as the doctor had said, could have been saved by the operation Robert had spoken against, he should be there next to her at that very moment. Earlier, her hands had searched the bed for him without ever wasting a single waking thought on it, it had been an instinct in her sleep-drunken state; one she had had for decades of waking up next to him now. He should be there, they should be talking to each other. Her hand right now should be stretched out to touch him gently. He should be there, whispering a raspy good morning to her like he'd always done. Despite everything, he was still her husband and today, she felt she needed him.

For the first time in weeks, she felt she needed to feel him close to be able to face the day ahead. How was she supposed to go down to the village to apologise to her mother-in-law for her abrupt, wordless departure if he was not there next to her to appease his mother? How was she supposed to survive those horrid looks her mother-in-law would be shooting her way when he was not there to give her strength by simply squeezing her hand reassuringly as had always been his custom? How was she supposed to go to her daughter's grave in the village graveyard without breaking down when he was not there to hold her hand? How was she supposed to be doing any of it when he was not there making sure she was feeling alright, reassuring her that he was there for her? Robert, her Robert, would do that, all of that, in a heartbeat. She had not a single doubt about that.

He should be here, and yet he wasn't.

But if he wasn't here with her or in his dressing room and also not with Matthew and Mary, then where was he? Where was her husband?

And then she recalled this truly odd conversation she had had with Mary when her daughter had come to her bedroom to ask after him not too long ago. Cora had told her daughter to ask her grandmother about Robert's whereabouts but she had never followed up.

Suddenly, she realised that maybe this had to do with his recurrent absence from dinner that had darkened her mood the night before. What if he still had not come home since then?

This got Cora jumping back into motion. She should get dressed, she could not very well go down to the village dressed in nothing but her nightgown and it was a matter of utmost urgency to her. It simply could not wait until afternoon when it would be socially acceptable to pay Mama a call. She hastened to pull on the bell rope and then quickly went to the bathroom to freshen up before O'Brien would arrive.

Suddenly, she felt like there was no time to lose.

"Cora!" she exclaimed when she saw her daughter-in-law entering her sitting room at 9 o'clock in the morning — a time most unusual to be paying calls of any nature. Having somewhat recovered from the shock of seeing her daughter-in-law stand in the door only minutes after she had come down and settled into the room herself, she added by way of courtesy: "Do come in. What brings you here so early?"

Cora deliberately ignored Violet's hands motioning for her to take a seat on one of the pale blue settees and instead opted to keep standing, rather awkwardly, in the middle of the room. It not only earned her a disapproving look but also an arched eyebrow, a slight shake of the head and a low tut.

"Taking a seat would have no merit, I will not be here long enough," she gave back quickly.

"Quite alright. What brings you here this early then?"

"I'm only here to ask if you have any idea where Robert is at the moment?"

"How curious, Mary and Matthew came to see me only yesterday to ask the exact same question. I thought he had come home by now." Violet said quietly, seeming lost in thought for a second. "I can only tell you what I told them. I have not seen my son since he left here, following after you a few days ago. He even left his hat behind as well as his cane when he walked back up to the abbey. Do tell me that he is simply keeping busy, buried in work of some sort," she went on, almost pleading with Cora by the end.

"I am afraid that is not the case. Mary has been looking for him for days now, Edith was the last person to see him when he came home from the visit here. He never came down to dinner that night and he hasn't ever since. His dressing room is empty and nobody has seen him." Similar to earlier, the mere thought that something might have happened to her husband made her oddly emotional considering her quite torn feelings regarding him in the past few weeks. These feelings went so deep that ultimately, she choked on the words she wanted to say. "I am just worri-"

There was no need to finish that sentence, though. Violet could well enough see all the worry and the regret mirrored on Cora's face. It shouldn't put her at ease quite like this, but oddly enough it did. She took it as a good sign to see her daughter-in-law care so openly again, it was so different from the emotionally distant Cora she had witnessed following Sybil's death. It might not have been what she or anyone had wanted to hear coming from Doctor Clarkson's mouth that afternoon a few days ago, but maybe the finality of what the doctor had said had been enough to bring them at least a little closer together again. Or at least it seemed to have prompted her to drop some of her heavy grief to allow him in again. But if nobody had seen him since the afternoon a few days ago, then maybe the desired effect had only reached Cora, contrary to Violet's expectations. And suddenly, she felt a pang of guilt in her chest. There was no possibility of the talk with Doctor Clarkson not having influenced his sudden disappearance, she knew her son well enough to know that for a fact.

What if…

Her voice laced with suspicion once she had composed herself again, Cora asked: "You know something, don't you?"

Appearing caught, Violet mustered the handle of her cane leaning against the desk to her left while nervously spinning around the wedding and engagement rings on her finger.

"I don't know anything."

No. He wouldn't. Or if he would, he would have done it far earlier.

"There is something you are not telling me. What is it, Mama?" Cora insisted, her blue-eyed, piercing stare not relenting as she looked at her mother-in-law.

"I know nothing with any certainty. But," Violet started slowly, now playing with a pen that had been lying on her right on the desk she was sitting in front of.

"But?"

"I may have told him it would be good to gain some distance."

"You did what?"

"Just after the funeral. You were both so wretchedly unhappy and he came to me for tea one afternoon, seeming so completely and utterly hopeless. I told him that maybe going away could help, though I rather meant that you should go visit your mother and be with her as I thought that might help you come to terms with it all. And he understood what I meant, but I could see in his eyes that he would never even pose the possibility to you, even if you had been talking to one another at the time. And yet I am afraid he might have taken that advice following your last visit here."

Cora heaved a deep breath trying to stay calm. It should not come as this big of a surprise to her that Violet had mentioned something like this to her husband, but it did. How on earth could she even so much as entertain the thought of her travelling to America just days after her youngest daughter had died? It boggled her mind and she had quite a few words to say to her about her meddling and everything else as well, but that simply would not do.

Not dignifying her mother-in-law with a response, she turned around and made to leave.

That same instant, Violet called her back. "Cora, wait." She picked up a folded sheet of paper that had been resting on the desk, previously untouched. Holding it out for her daughter-in-law to take, she said: "Doctor Clarkson left this here, I assume by accident. Have a look at it, please."

It was only the soft tone of her voice and her pleading eyes that prompted Cora to take the folded paper and put it into the purse dangling from her arm. It was only all too easy to forget that not only had they lost a daughter, but she a granddaughter as well. Moments like these, when she appeared more vulnerable than possibly ever before, reminded Cora of it.

Her complexion mellowed and she even managed a small smile, saying: "Thank you, Mama."

Then she turned around to leave once again. Her long strides had already carried her across most of the room when Violet's voice rang out once again in a quiet plea behind her. "Please find him, dear."

She stopped. Cora had reached the threshold by now and didn't turn around to face her again, she only turned her head to the side to signal that she was indeed listening.

"Bring him home, bring my son back to where he belongs."

At this, Cora looked over her shoulder, her back still facing the room she was about to leave behind. Refusing to meet Violet's eye, she nodded her head lightly and merely breathed: "I will try."

She stood there in the doorframe unable to move for another few seconds, as if her feet were frozen to the ground. She was trying to breathe and reign in her almost overflowing emotions until finally, she walked down the hallway in quick, long strides towards the car parked up front.

"Where is this goddamned bottle?" he shouted angrily into the smoke-heavy darkness of the room, not expecting a reply for there was nobody there with him.

He was alone. All alone with his thoughts, his cigars, and the whiskey. Or he was alone with the cigars and his thoughts — he had just downed the last drop of the amber liquid from the decanter that had been standing atop the silver tray on the wooden cabinet that was holding port and other spirits he was no great fan of, and now there was none left. Apart maybe from another odd bottle of Whiskey inside he was now looking for.

That decanter had not lasted him nearly long enough. Still, he wanted more. He needed more. He needed to feel the alcohol burn inside him as he swallowed it, he needed to feel its effects take over. He needed to feel the subsequent numbness to finally take over his mind. Even the blatant numbness, that complete and utter lack of any type of feeling, was better than feeling all these things and thinking all these thoughts he so desperately wanted to shut off.

Feverishly he rummaged around inside the cabinet while down on his knees, the bottles and decanters inside clanking against one another, with his hands unsteadily shaking as he tried to find more. He could barely make out the labels on the bottles, not that reading those would have been possible for him in his current state. It was all more blurry and obscure than he was used to, and the darkness that filled the room was of no great help, either.

Maybe he should not have sent the footman away when he had arrived here. Now it was just him, the cook and their new hallboy in the grand house. This grand house that was so empty, so silent. It truly was deafening, this silence, and he had rarely ever thought that was a word that could describe a silence of any kind.

He had immediately tried to fill the void it created with the same tools he always resorted to. Only now he had apparently run out of his favourite one and he had not come down here from his room much more than three hours ago. This was the third decanter of whiskey he had emptied within the past 24 hours since he arrived here in London — it must have been a new personal record, not that he was in any state of mind to think about that. Slowly it dawned on him that he could ring the bell — maybe that hallboy would come and he could send him to find some more whiskey in the depths of the cellars here.

Even before Robert could decide to walk over to where the rope was dangling from the wall, he heard the young lad's voice coming from somewhere behind him.

"I'm ever so sorry to interrupt, sir, but there is a woman at the door asking after you."

The boy had not been around any people of their station much so far in his young life, he knew that immediately from the false way of address, but the news he brought was more important than etiquette. If there even was such a thing as important news anymore. He highly doubted it, nothing was of any importance any longer, not to him. He had lost his daughter and his wife, likely his entire family, so why shouldn't he lose his title as well? He had lost everything already, what was a name compared to all that?

Lackadaisically, he turned to look at the boy standing in the doorway, light flooding into the room from the hallway behind him. Robert had to blink a few times to grow accustomed to it once again, still only able to see the boy's silhouette, quite blurry and swaying at that.

"Who's it?" he then asked, trying his best not to slur his words too much while also getting up off the ground with as much dignity as he could muster.

"She said her name was Painswick if I understood her correctly."

"Tell her to go away. I'm not here."

The boy, he was barely older than twelve per Robert's earlier estimation upon first meeting him, turned on his heel and left without another word.

A second later, Robert added loudly: "Better yet, tell that to anyone who knocks. I'm not here!"

He did not know if the boy had heard him or not, but it wouldn't matter. Once his sister had left again, nobody would come looking for him either way. Nobody else cared much for him, not after what he had done.

Without wasting a single thought on it, he reached out to the decanters and glasses on the tray and took hold of the next best thing he could reach. In one swift motion, he hoisted it up and hurled it at the fireplace. The sound of the glass hitting the wall did not register with him, and neither did the shattering of the crystal into a thousand tiny pieces. Even the angry hissing noise the embers in the hearth emitted and the sparks sent flying around when the alcohol ran down the wall, trickling onto them, barely coaxed a reaction from him.

He had killed his daughter. Or at least he had prevented their doctor from saving her, and that amounted to the same thing. His wife could not even stand to so much as look at him. And neither could he whenever he stood in front of any mirror.

In the far distance, he heard them talking. It was undoubtedly Rosamund at the door downstairs, he could tell that much from just the distant, muffled sound of her voice reaching him. And as much as he'd have liked to talk to his sister, he knew it would not be a good idea. Just like everyone else she'd despise him when she found out the truth and he would inevitably tell her if she came up here, he knew that much for sure.

Swaying to and fro, he slowly and cautiously tried walking over to the window hidden behind the thick fabric that kept most of the light outside, trapping him in this semi-darkness. Peeking through the heavy, drawn curtains, he watched as his red-headed sister crossed the street down below, her head held high.

She turned around once she'd reached the other side and looked up at the house almost as if she were inspecting it, her eyes wandering from window to window as disappointment was written all over her features. At first, it seemed as if she hadn't seen him, but then he thought he saw her expression change. The disappointment waned and was replaced by confusion and worry.

Nonetheless, she turned around again after looking at what little she saw of him swaying behind the window up above, and then started to make her way back home to Belgrave Square once more.